Unlike Pokemon, a fighting game tier list if often based on how well a character is perceived to perform against every other character in the game. For example, Pyroak is where he is because he doesn't really have any bad match ups. Although he won't dominate any character by a large margin (except maybe one), he's just so consistent and solid, there's no reason to put him anywhere but in the top tier.

Revenankh's only bad matchup is Pyroak, this is made up for by the fact that he has a huge advantage over everyone else once he gets the knockdown. Playing against Revenankh forces you to be very sharp at all times and most matches are at least slightly in his favour.

I'm not so sure about Skulloton's placement, personally. He's been getting some attention lately, and it's possible he may even find himself in a tier by himself if a dedicated player followed through breaking him. He has tools for every situation and do can crazy damage. His low health and high execution barrier hold him back somewhat, but can be worked around.

Although Krilowatt has some very good matchups (Stratagem), he finds himself in Low, I believe, because of his his somewhat one-dimensional offensive game. If you can counter his Dives and block his cross ups, there's very little he can do to pressure you.

Vitalimar finds himself where he is, ostensibly, because of his low damage output and weakness to good anti-air options. These two factors, coupled with his complete lack of defensive options, means he can have trouble with bulky or defensive characters (Colossoil and Cyclohm come to mind). Despite this, his success or failure depends on the player's ability to mix up his offense effectively, to bait out responses and punish. Despite his apparent weaknesses, Vitalimar can win without taking a lick of damage if his opponent simply guesses wrong.

What do you guys think? It'd be helpful if you can back up your ideas on tier placements, as we'd love to hear your opinions on the matter.

only suprised by krillowatts placement because i have found his offense lacking however his turtle game is suprisingly good. i put him in lower mid tier above vita but below kitsonoh.
if you play krillowatt like damdai does ryu. (strong fireball VS fireball characters and spam weak fireball/DP vs non fireballs) and rely on super for antiair. you can do well. pyroak might have the edge in this playstyle but krillowatts dive allows him to flee from the corner if you guess correctly. plus his C fireball(forgot the name) breaks other fireballs. forcing YOU to come to krillowatt.

Just to be clear order within each tier is pretty meaningless. Also, every character is viable, though Kril and Vit have some awful match ups. Also to clarify, god tier is for characters you must use to be competitive or you'll lose. Garbage is for characters that are total jokes and cannot win.

I am not so sure skull is broken or even that technically hard. Do you honestly need to be able to do stuff harder than launcher combos to be really effective?

Anyway, this list reflects a lot of my input so I agree with much of it.

Personally after playing a lot against my brother's skull, I feel skull could easily be the best. A j.C > launcher does about 1/3rd of the enemies health, it seems he always has an option (and most of those lead to high damage), and if I remember correctly, his bullet punch beats out oak's hammer. Also his super does good damage, and even great chip if they block. My brother will probably have something to say about this anyways.

I have trouble with some of the placements, but nothing so large that i think it's a huge issue.

And yeah as zen mentioned I can easily see skull near the top. He can basically do anything and net insane damage off of it. His bullet punch being changed technically hurts him since it makes poke games harder, but other than that you can still do everything you did before so it's not much of an issue.

'Tis a sad day when Stratagem is mid tier. Maybe I don't use him enough. A habit from v02 when people got too mad when playing him.

Although, BatCap for the most part is uh, less tiers and more play. Vita at low tier? Whenever I play TGM's vita, I lose...

Also, I would argue that Pyroak has two bad matchups. One slightly bad one in Stratagem, but I'm the most biased man on the planet. Still, Power Gem does mess with a lot of Pyroak tactics.
The other would be poke Fidgit, which does a great job at trading hits.

I'm a bit out of the metagame currently, so I guess I don't count much, but uh, when I come back, Gem will have some words to say.

'Tis a sad day when Stratagem is mid tier. Maybe I don't use him enough. A habit from v02 when people got too mad when playing him.

Although, BatCap for the most part is uh, less tiers and more play. Vita at low tier? Whenever I play TGM's vita, I lose...

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Strata just has a handful of slightly worse than even match ups, no biggie. Being mid tier isn't some huge blow. Same with low, really.

For example Vitalimar - Strata is probably one of his better match ups. No reversal, tries to leverage mobility but can't easily escape quick feet, etc. Think more like Cyclohm as a bad vitalimar match up. Vit's also arguably mid, I'm not sure he has as many problems as Kril!

fat Xaqwais said:

Also, I would argue that Pyroak has two bad matchups. One slightly bad one in Stratagem, but I'm the most biased man on the planet. Still, Power Gem does mess with a lot of Pyroak tactics.
The other would be poke Fidgit, which does a great job at trading hits.

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I actually agree with both of those completely. Oak is all around solid, but if he has any disadvantage match ups, they'd be Strata and Fidgit. Power gem truly does lock down Oak pretty well. Oak can either try and make Strata land on ember, or save meter for solar beam to punish any power gem or levitate away. Still not a terrible match. And of course, Fidgit's EP game let's him work around Oak's projectiles quite brilliantly. Mind you, not gotta have even or better match ups with everyone to be top! Significantly, Oak is possibly Rev's only bad match up - and even then Rev wins hard once he's in.

Looking forward to you getting back and showing us your stuff, Xaq! Your hit list is to prove these match ups are not that bad for Gem: Kril, Ohm, Skull and maybe Rev.

^ This is a fighting game which uses CAP's Pokemon. Vitalimar and Skulloton are CAP conecpts which never got used. Colossoil is used the most on the CAP server for actually playing Pokemon, rather than this game.

you know what would be more productive than a random tier list? a matchup chart that way we know why each character is where they are and the problems in each matchup. the game's matchups are more important than in most game due to character varaity.

to get the ball rolling i decided to start with vitalimar. (note lag causes problems often for example vitas wakeup dive can beat cut but it takes frame perfect precision. which is impossible in lag)

from the top and going left to right.

syclant 6-4 vitalimar
syclants advantage comes from the power of fury cutter defense and the followup wakeup game. if vita can guess correctly he gets massvie damage in return.

Rev 5-5 vitalimar
the matchup is insane like all grappler vs grappler matchups. in fact its one i have little experience in. but playing a few offline players gives me the impression that vitas bodyslam can destroy rev. but his low health means that a simple B&B into command throw is death

Pyroak 6-4 vitalimar (perhaps 5-5?)
both have options against the other. vitalimar can do quick feet superjump C faster than human reaction time.meaning that oak must predict when to use wood hammer. on the other hand once oak gets the KD oak now can setup all kinds of traps with energy ball.

fidget VS vitalimar
no clue

stratagem vs vitalimar
no clue

vitalimar vs vitalimar
0-10 mirrors are always recorded as 0-10 because its so random

soil vs vita.
6-4

soil has bad antiair which hurts in this MU. however any kind of hit = near death vitalimar.

cyclohm vs vita 7-3

cyclohms juggle antiair shuts down 1/2 of vitas options.
however vitas low C is a great way to get a KD throw spree.

kitsonoh VS vita
no clue

arg 7 vs 3 vita
strong antiair defense in hookmans upper and cut. but it becomes 6-4 if vita is good enough to do the one frame meaty bodyslam. shutting down (non) reversal cut
krillowatt4 vs 6vita

pixies! spacing is very important. if vita forces krill into a corner krill is basically dead. however if krill can stay away with fireballs and the awesome DP krill can runaway for years.

NOTE: mostly based on a few offline players. we all suck so dont take my word for granted.

you know what would be more productive than a random tier list? a matchup chart that way we know why each character is where they are and the problems in each matchup. the game's matchups are more important than in most game due to character varaity.

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Yes, and for all of the playtesting process we have worked to identify problem match ups. However, identifying an entire match up grid is hard enough on old established games played in tournaments, so I don't think that's particularly productive here on a game in constant flux. It's enough to identify 'unreasonable disadvantage' matches rather than working out 6-4/7-3/8-2 etc.

For real balancing, we find terrible match ups or characters that can dominate everyone somehow and fix it. In this particular thread, we're just looking overall at who needs the most or least help. That's useful and not just a 'random tier list'.

So certainly identify worst match ups in the individual character threads, or problem characters dominating everyone. But this particular thread gives us a general feel for the overall balance, and that's useful!

ahh got it fimphym. Im used to making a MU chart and then from there the tierlist is created. so i figured a MU chart would help identify characters that needed buffs/nerfs/remain the same

i agree with you though that perhaps its a wasted effort to continue. the time would be better spent finding infinates. and new ways to counter various offensive/defensive strategy
Hopefully i can get my new internet cable up that runs 2x as fast as my current DSL line. my ping is pretty high (100+ms) so that means im playing mostly offline for now.

As we go on, I'm tweaking the cast less and less. I take as a sign that we're getting a progressively more balanced game, and hopefully not one of stagnation as we players find ourselves in a rut. On one hand, we've not taken on many new regulars lately, so we're often playing the same people. On the other hand, as we get deeper into the game, I've found some characters really being opened up, which is exciting. The videos of our matches on my channel from many months ago are very different from the matches on Fim's channel today. Not just in how the game has developped over time, but we're getting increasingly thoughtful in our approach as the game rewards good decisions.

I'm not opposed to match up charts, I find them rather fun, but I don't see them being used constructively to improve the game. Because that's the theme of this thread, speculating about ranks and match ups here is fine.

With 5.0, I'd like to revamp the tiers chart. Basically, everything needs a simple way to beat Pyroak, or its not getting to Top. Oak is THAT good(good thing it'll get a nerf in 5.1!)

God
None

BL1
Pyroak(arguably)

Top
Skulloton
Syclant
Colossoil

BL2
Stratagem

Medium
Cyclohm
Revenankh
Cascavian
Fidgit
Arghonaut
Kitsunoh

Low
Krilowatt
Vitalimar

I'll explain Pyroak. Pyroak gains a projectile even slower than A-Ball, meaning it has an even better projectile for gaining space(X-Ember). It gets a projectile, which literally, cannot be blocked(X-Ball, after blocking first of 3 hits, other 2 connect, if you don't believe me, check yourself), one of the best reversals (X-Flamethrower), and to top it off, one of THE best anti-airs in the game(X-Wood Hammer), which reaches insane height before crashing down. All of them also serve other purposes.

X-Ember: Unlike normal ember, X-Ember moves very slowly, so while normal Ember is used to counter projectiles, X-Ember can counter them, act as a moving wall even better than A-Ball, and to top it all off, stops projectiles from being fired off at all. This means that unless you're Stratagem or Krilowatt, you are going to have to take to the air to avoid getting put into blockstun(which Oak takes advantage of magnificently). Now this would be ok if Oak didn't have an excellent non X using anti air, Flamethrower.

X-Ball: Can be used like A-Ball to gain space, or to take advantage of hitstun. The only way(AFAIK) to beat X-Ball is to fire your own projectile at it, which pushes it back towards Pyroak, who will often get surprised, but IIRC Oak can also fire its own projectile to push it back again, leading to some very entertaining, but fairly one sided projectile wars.

X-Flamethrower: Effectively a block that cannot stop projectiles, but that isn't the point. X-Flamethrower's selling point is that it discourages melee combat, allowing Pyroak to abuse its standard Ember to the fullest extent.

X-Wood Hammer: YEAHHHHHH. The altitude Pyroak makes on this attack is really amazing, and since it stuns the opponent first before going up, they can't even attempt to flee.

P.S.Solarbeam isn't really needed by Oak now, spamming Ember was never this great.

Now the reason why COLOSSOIL is Top now: X-Pursuit.

X-Pursuit is even better than normal pursuit, and with Oak using a lot of X, Soil can take the chip damage(with that admirable HP stat), and follow up with a great anti-projectile move which Oak probably won't be able to block. He also performs admirably versus all other projectile users, and can hold his own versus opposing Colossoil, Arghonaut and Revenankhs.

Stratagem in BL2: Power Gem is what saves it, since the angle of C-Gem ensures it can use it without being endangered by Flamethrower(it takes practice to get what position you have to fire the Power Gem from). X-Power Gem is even juicier, since it gives Gem an excellent one off defensive tool to gain space while Oak blocks.

Rev dropping down: Rev hasn't really seemed all that great now, since it's acutely feeling the pinch of not possessing any true projectile; Bind being close, but not quite it.

Also a single character does not change the tier list. What you're thinking of it match-ups. The tier list really shouldn't shift too dramatically with a single character, especially if they're not regarded as the best in the game.

To make the changes more realistic, lets "average" your two tier lists, the result would be:

You're right about niches. It's why matchup comparisons are more important in this case.

Arghonaut, for example, has to play a more cautious game against Syclant. He doesn't have the greatest reversal options and can be overwhelmed by Ant's mixup. Similarly, he can't press a full offense because of Ant's very good reversal. Argh is then forced to use Cut defensively and make use of his anti air, while being especially mindful to block the Furies.

Against Cycohm, Argh very much wants to play his game of staying in and getting damage, except now he has a hard time accomplishing this. Once in, it's all cheeseburgers, but finding that opening is a huge pain.

In both cases, I'd argue Arghonaut has a disadvantage (something like 4:6 and 2:8 respectively), but for very different reasons. Syclant forces Argh to drop his strengths and play somewhat unnaturally. Cyclohm allows Argh to do his thing with little fear, but only gives Arghonaut a small window of opportunity, with most of the match spent on trying to break in.